need reassurance!!, Back story explaining my concerns

Hello all. i have never posted here before, but find myself needing to speak with others to perhaps make myself feel more confident about my operation. Let me start by explaining my story

I am a 31 year old man, happily married with 2 beautiful daughters, 7 and 4. I first had problems with my back 6 years ago, suffering badly from sciatica. At the time i had BUPA and saw a private consultant, Mr Banks based in Bolton. He booked me in to an operation having diagnosed me with a bulging disc which was ommitting a substance which solidified against my nerves giving me sciatica.

Having had the op, 6 weeks later i felt great. 3 years later it retruned, had a MRI scan again and was back in with Mr Banks and had the same operation again.

Now, 3 years on from that, the problem has come back again. This time i have no BUPA. I have been to Warrington hospital to see Mr O' Malley. My MRI shows that my disc is redundant and is not doing its job. They gave me 3 options.

1. Do nothing and live with the pain i am in now hopefully it will get better
2. Have the same operation i have had before but risk having scar tissue and long terms problems if i need at again in the future
3. Have the same operation as before but also enter through my stomach and have my disc removed and replaced. This emans no more problems with this particulat disc.

My problem is that 2 months ago my brother (28) , had this operation by a Mr Ross in the Spire hospital in Manchester. Something went wrong, and my brother nearly died from losing too much blood and them not having the right team around at the time to deal with it. The operation was stopped and my brother still needs surgery. He was in high dependacny for 2 weeks, but now he is ok and back home, but it has affected our family, and esepcially me. And now i have been told that my best option is to have this same operation, but i am really scared about it.

Can anyone pease offer any advice, thoughts, feedback regarding this procedure as i am really worried about what i should do. My family have all said i should do it as my brothers situation was a one off, and an individual error by his consultant, but i really don't know what to do for the best.

I miss being able to pick my daughters up, i can't drive for very long, i find it hard to socialise and have a drink because the medication i am on, and i am so tired because the pills wear me out, after work each day i am fit for nothing, My sex drive due to the Pregablin tablets has dimished and i just want my old life back.

Please help me.

Thanks in anticpation,

Very Scared

Hiya,
Warrington is a really OK place to be and if you read the postings here you will see how many successes there are at Warrington.

It sounds as if you have had 2 discectomies and finally your disc has collapsed.

Have a good read and be sure in yourself about this. The FAQ`s are a good place to get info from and the pre and post surgery stories
Take care
Best
Alastair

I am sure what your brother went through was absolutly horrible. but you must draw strength from the fact you are not your brother and you are now at warrington which has the best surgeons around if you could ask to see mr Shackleford. but also ask as many questions of the doctors and people on this site as you need to, we are all here to help some of us like you are still waiting for our ops whilst others are out the other side so there is a welth of expeireance here. we have to have faith in our decisions or we would never do anthing, please do not let your brothers expierence put you off think about how life would be for you Pain free.
I wish you well in your deliberations.

xx

thankyo for your comments. So is warrington generally i good place to be? I am seeing My o Malley but are you saying Mr Shackleton is better?

Many Thanks

If you have problems post op it can be a big disadvantage being at a private hospital as there aren't always people to hand to sort things out (ie vascular surgeons, neurosurgeons etc). All surgery is a risk but you have to weigh up what you have to gain and the chance of anything going wrong for you.

Hope you find the answers you need to help you make the right decision.

alison x

I am not saying mr Shackleford is better as I do not know the other Dr but mr Shackleford does have a extreamly good reputation. hope you get some peace of mind from this site
x

Hi,
I'm actually supposed to be in Warrington hospital now waiting to having TDR surgery at 2 levels tomorrow, but, no bed for me yet. Fingers crossed for tomorrow for a bed.
Anyway I digress apart from the fact I to am being treated at Warrington, Mr Shackleford is very good and was originally recommended to me by my osteopath.
It's a tough decision and can understand your brothers experience putting you off. But, like you say it's probably a one off and you would have the backing of being in an NHS hospital if things did go pear shaped. I suppose you have to compare the risks really as there are risks with everything as we all know and it's all getting them back into proportion really after such a horrendous problem with your poor brother following this surgery.
Ask lots of questions and weigh it all up, it's all any of us can do. My thoughts are with you, I think all you can do is try to look at it as you would have before and then after, if you can try and separate how you'd look at it if your brother had been fine and how it compares now and see if that helps.
If it's any help I'm sure I was told by someone who worked as a nurse at Warrington that Mr O'Malley trained under Mr Shackleford and has spent time at Walton Hospital. So I think he's considered to be very competent, but, I'm not 100% sure. Mr Shackleford certainly has a good reputation as you can see on here and you should be able to switch to him surely if you felt the need.
Anyway I wish you well and hope you come to a decision.
I've suffered for 23 years and wouldn't wish it on anyone, was on pregablin & gabapentin for a long time and know what you mean. Have you found you are clumsy and muddle your words up. I've nearly fell asleep in the afternoon at work. Sometimes probably would have been better if I had LOL.
Anyway not sure if it helps, but, well we all go on here for help and support and another person in same boat opinon.
Good luck
Jen

Thank you for you comments, it does help. What annoyed me a little is that when i was told to come for my consultation where i was told this was my option i didnt even see Mr O Malley, but his assistant Karen, who was really nice, but i would have thought that the actual consultant would have given me the news. I have called his PA to ask for a chat which will be this Friday, but it felt like it was an inconvience for them??

How difficult is it to ask for a 2nd opinion from Mr Shackleton or even to be put into his workload??

It feels like im a bother to them a little bit. Any tips on how i approach this?

I think if you look at previous postings you will find that Mr Shackleford is backed up right until February next year. I'm sure that Mr Shackleford and Mr O'Malley work in parallel with each other, they both seem to have extremely good teams. Mr Shackleford is the older of the two and so has more experience, but a lot depends on the actual team that is with them when they do the surgery.

We would all like the "Star" as Mr Shackleford is that I think he is extremely busy at the moment.
Best,
Alastair

If you really wanted to go to the world's most experienced surgeon then he would fly to Portugal or Munich and see Dr Zeegers. Cost about £ 15 to £20,000

I think it is normal practice to be seen by a registra on the 1st appointment have they said they need scans or x-rays doing, you may not get to see the consultant untill those results are in.
hope you are gaining some reassurence from this site.

xx

@csutton - i am, you are all being great, i am so glad i found this website, and special thanks to Alistair;@)

i have had my scan already, i thought the appointment was with the consultant to talk about the results and my options, which it was, but with the assistant to the consultant??

is that normal?

Yes it is quite often the case, if the MRI scan has been done, then the facts are known and the consultant's assistant will have been briefed by the consultant prior to seeing you.

We really need the spine surgeons in this country, there are only 60 in the country which is about one per million of the population. We need young men like the consultant's assistant to be trained to do the job.

Part of the job is explaining to patients about the surgery which the consultant is going to do so he was really on a "learning curve". Nothing to worry about.
You take care,
Alastair

You are not being a bother, Its your health and you have to learn to make yourself heard. If you want to see Mr Shackleford especially then you should ask for the referral, you owe it to yourself.

Hello Very scared. Do you have a name? I had ADR at 1 level nearly 5 months ago, done by Mr shackleford at Warrington. Although I had seen Mr S on previous occasions (had discctomy 10yrs ago & seen him privately at Spire), it was the registrar who discussed my operation. She told me all the pitfalls ( frightened the life out of me really, it made me defer my decision for a while, but in all fairness she gave me a "worse case scenario) I know your brother had a bad time, but he is the exeption rather than the rule. I am OK now, I'll never be 100%, but I can walk miles now ( could only manage about 1/4 mile prev ) & I dont have that constant nagging pain anymore. Its difficult to assess whether an operation like this is successful because you have to try & guess where you would be in 2,5 or 10 yrs time if you didn't have it done. Disc disease is a progressivly worsening condition. If you don't have something done, the only guarantee is that it will get worse. It seems like you have had 2 disectomies on the same disc, I cant really imagine that you could have any more of it removed, so I'm not sure why it has been given as an option.
You sound like you are still young, so you have to ask yourself if you can live the rest of your life like you are now, getting progressivly worse. I know it is a terrible dilema, believe me, I went through the same, but I dont regret having it done. i simply couldn't stand the pain & life disruption any more. I wanted to be "normal" again, & now I am ( nearly)

Kath

My name is Paul